White Noise.

When the Grapevine-sprung Post Malonefinally met Allen Iverson in late May, it seemed like another win for the rapper-singer who has become a legitimate superstar since the release of “White Iverson” two years ago.

Then, just last week, Starlito continued his assault with the release of “Black John Stockton,” a very thinly-veiled shot at Malone’s “White Iverson” that even featured a caricature of the white rapper-singer in blackface as its art work.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to interesting area rap surprises of late. Also last week, Go Yayo, Fort Worth’s biggest rap sensation of the moment, got himself a feature from the Fort Worth rap legend Twisted Black on his new Rich Before 21 mixtape. Black is currently locked up through at least the late 2020s on drug charges, but he still contributed two verses to Yayo’s mixtape while speaking to the young rapper over the phone from prison. In a conversation before performing his impressive new verses, Black tells Yayo that he’s proud of the work he’s doing for Fort Worth but that he needs to “take everybody else’s mistakes and don’t make them. Just keep pushing.” Give it a listen:

In some actually good area rap news, though, there’s this: When the final scene for the upcoming move Transformers: The Last Knight ends and the credits roll for the summer blockbuster, the X Ambassadors’ “Torches” will play and we should all be happy for Dustin Cavazos, who wrote the track. The news was confirmed by his manager last week on Facebook.

One festival that will for be returning in 2017, though, is Lights All Night. The annual year-ending EDM bash announced today that it will be returning to its home at Dallas Market Hall on December 29 and 30 this year. No lineup details have yet been announced, but early-bird tickets are already on sale, with weekend passes starting at $99 right here.

Speaking of cool collaborations, we’ve told you a number of times now about the indie supergroup BNQT, which is built around a base featuring several members from Denton’s Midlake, as well as the lead singers of Grandaddy, Band Of Horses, Franz Ferdinand and Travis. Well, now the groups released an accompanying video to “Restart,” the group’s first single from their debut album, Volume 1. The dark and whimsical video stars Dallas musician George Quartz and was created by the Denton art group Artlab3000. Check it out:

In another surprising move, Toadies and Hagfish bassist Doni Blair raised some eyebrows this week when he announced that he’d written a book. Called Even If It Kills Me, the book tells Blair’s true story of being a rock ‘n’ roll musician who decides to take up taekwondo at 40 years old, continuing his dream of being a martial artist that spawned as a child. You can pre-order your copy here.

Doni’s brother Zach, meanwhile, made some news of his own this week with another band he’s in — Drakulas, although he also performs in Hagfish and Rise Against — as that group, which also features members of Riverboat Gamblers, debuted a new music video this week on Purevolume. The video for the song “VHS” is an homage to the punk band Suburban Lawns’ their video for “Janitor.”

Bowling For Soup, meanwhile, dropped a new clip for its latest single, “Don’t Be A Dick,” by humorously lampooning their tour manager Dave Hale and naming him as the titular “Dick” in the clip. Our two cents? You kind of have to be a dick to be a decent tour manager, and Hale fills that role not only for Bowling for Soup, but for the Burleson-based red dirt group, Casey Donahew Band. Still, here’s that animated clip:

Selena Gomez, on the other hand, refuses to give up any starring roles in the video for her newest single, “Bad Liar,” in which she plays all the lead roles.

And finally this week, after announcing last week that he’d signed to Hand Drawn Records, Dallas folk artist Silas Nello announced that his debut Out of the Light LP will drop on July 28 with an album release party slated to go down at Spinster Records on that same date. He also released the video for his just-released “Holy Ghost Blues” single.